At the recent Writing Research Across Borders conference at George Mason University, I attended a presentation on “The Impact of Metacognitive Strategies within Writing in the Disciplines.” In a nutshell, having students reflect about their rhetorical choices definitely improves their metacognitive thinking and may actually improve their writing.

Several University of Michigan faculty members presented preliminary results of a three-year research study involving 13 universities and funded by the Spencer and Teagle foundation.

In the first run of the experiment, UM asked students in disciplinary writing courses to engage in three metacognitive activities for each major paper:

a pre-survey that got students thinking about the assignment

(What skill does this assignment call for? What previous knowledge do you bring to the assignment? How will this assignment help you think like a psychologist/political scientist/etc.? What do you need to help you complete this assignment?)

self-monitoring comments with feedback

(Students came up with 3-5 questions about their writing and posted them via Track Changes in the margins of a draft. Instructors, or TAs, answered the questions and provided an explanation. For example, Q: “I’m not sure my reader would understand that this is a ‘key’ point and not just ‘a’ point. A: “I missed that this was one of your main ideas because …” )

After the first paper or two, the surveys become less useful as answers become somewhat rote. But the monitoring comments have proved a big hit with both faculty and students. Faculty can note patterns of roadblocks. Student evaluations of instructors using this method have soared (probably because in large courses this individualized feedback is unusual).

It’s important to prepare students well to use self-reflective monitoring comments on drafts, the UM researchers say. Here’s an excerpt from their instruction sheet:

Use the “comment” function in Word to insert at least three questions or comments in the margins of the paper. This is your opportunity to communicate with us and (eventually with your peer evaluators) “backstage” about the choices you’ve made, to make your thinking more explicit. You might note places where:

you’ve made your primary argument–why that argument and why there?

you’ve drawn on key concepts from the course–why that concept, what does this concept help you do/understand/achieve in this paper?

you feel uncertain about whether you’ve gotten your point across (and why)

you are struggling with or confused about writing the kind of piece the assignment asks for (and why)

you are struggling with or confused about a particular concept (and why)

you have responded to or accommodated feedback you received on the first draft (this applies to the second draft only)

In addition, UM instructors provide students with models of comments in text.

In the Q&A after the session, the UM folks conceded that they have not yet had time to process all the data they’ve been gathering. In the future lies systematic assessment of the papers (gathered electronically). And they do not have plans yet to assess whether this method works differently for L2 (ESL) writers. But the survey responses and student and faculty evaluations suggest that they’re onto something with this highly structured but fairly simple intervention.